Encrypted Connection

Joey: Seven

He couldn't sleep but that wasn't new. He often felt like his mind was a computer with too many tabs open at once. It either worked fast or not at all. And sleep was never a long term option.

Giving up, he got up from the couch he was laying on and took a look at the screen. The ping from the dog tracker was still in the same spot and it didn't make sense. But he'd find out. With some time, he'd find a way to hack his way inside that place and find out what was going on. His eyes went to a second screen where a program he came up with by himself was still tracking relentlessly the containers brought in and out of the country so maybe Blaise and his team could save some lives instead of retrieving bodies next time.

For now, there was not much more he could do.

With a sigh, he went to the fridge, took a coke from it and opened the bottle before drinking some. Closing the door of the fridge, he turned around, automatically drawn to the computers again. It was more than a habit, it was his link to the outside life, the only way it accepted him. The only way he had to feel a part of it.

But something made him stop. He frowned and took another sip of his soda as he tried to figure out what it was. He was probably still shaken by the news of what happened to his official hideout. He had it from the clone he made for Agent Turner's phone. She had been calling backups all night, sending texts to the lab and all the contacts she had to find out who invaded Joey's house. Or at least what she thought was his house.

He had managed to pull out images from the street cameras and now knew one single man had found a way in, turned the place outside down and got out without any of the agents keeping an eye on the house seeing him.

And Turner wanted him to feel safe and trust her?

Yeah, right.

What bothered him the most was the fact the guy avoided looking up the entire time he was around the house so there was no image of his face. Nothing.

And there was the timing too. Just not long after Blaise paid him a visit, not long after Joey found a way to locate Madame K, someone decided to come after him.

Part of him was tempted to just bail. Screw Silvo, screw Blaise, screw everything. Joey didn't want to die.

But the other part of him, sadly the loudest one, kept hoping he'd be able to be cleared of all charges and free to do what he wanted. Well, mostly free. And that part also refused to give up on those being prisoners of those containers, of that human traffic.

He was so close. So close to making a difference for them.

Why did he have to have a conscience, goddammit? Truth was he knew what it felt like to be all alone with no one to trust, no one to go to for help. He'd been sent from one family to another half his life, never knowing where it would be, who it would be. Crazy, lazy, mean, perverted, sadistic, selfish, greedy, or even worse: nice but not interested in keeping him, he saw them all.

The simple idea there could be one kid like him out there, one kid sold by one of those people paid to keep them safe, was just too sickening to allow him to bail.

He would just have to work fast, he thought.

Work fast, catch those bastards, all of them. Hand them over to Blaise and be done with it. Then he could find himself a nice place to live in, high enough to stay out of the crowd, high enough to have a view above the city, a view that would allow him to breathe and feel like even the walls around him couldn't steal that freedom away from him. Feet far away from the street, head close enough to the clouds...and his beloved technology.